Neglected point is that if you read a statement of fact in a British newspaper, you can be reasonably sure it is true. That doesn't seem to stop them from being argumentative or scandal sheets, so maybe there is something to be said for British libel laws from the consumers point-of-view. Similar arguments apply to product liability lawsuits generally.

I'm not sure the quote from the Bioethics Commission in ftn. 20 is really dualism. It sounds more like neutral monism to me.

Quebec had an election last month, and the PQ was reduced to third place. It's a minority situation, so another election is possible, but the likelihood of the PQ winning a majority government on a promise of a referendum is low, and the likelihood of it winning that referendum is somewhat more remote. Anything is possible, but Quebec secession seems unlikely, even though a majority of French Quebecois would support it if it could be delivered painlessly. 
 
My own bet is that similar constraints of institutional inertia will make Scottish secession unlikely too.

Presumably, though, the higher rate of evolution in agricultural societies would itself be a group-level trait. And if peoples who discovered agriculture early have displaced those that did not (as they have), then that would be group-selection?

sometimes it is difficult to tell "how far" you from literal or not because plain readings are well nigh impossible 
 
Sure. But there is an additional pressure to come up with non-literal readings when the text is supposed to be inerrant.

Evangelical Protestantism is about as far from being "literal" about texts as it is possible to be. That is an inevitable implication of believing the text to be inerrant. Other good examples of things evangelical Protestantism has opposed, despite their excellent biblical warrant include alcohol, slavery and polygamy.